


The Double Life of Diplomats

by Oceans_Away



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Boss Bitches, Communication, Diplomacy, Discipline, Dom/sub, Double Life, F/M, Falling In Love, Fantasy BDSM Party, Femdom, Hard impact scene, Kink, Kissing, Lenector Weekend (Castlevania), Mild Pet Play, Oral Sex, Picking up at the end of S3, Pining, Politics, Rules, Secrets, Sex, Sexual Tension, Shameless Lenore apologism, Smuggling in my feminist rants about double standards, Sneaking Around, Soft Lenore, Submissive Hector, The Quartet - Freeform, Trust, Trust Issues, Vampire party times, Violence, collaring, flr, negotiation, night creatures, schemes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:06:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29382492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceans_Away/pseuds/Oceans_Away
Summary: Hector is wounded and frightened in the aftermath of Lenore's betrayal in the Quartet's council chamber, but as he and Lenore speak and more of her scheme unfolds, he begins to question his resistance. When the infamous vampire general, Chō, visits the Sisters, Lenore finds herself called to prove herself once and for all, while holding her relationship with Hector in the balance. As pressures converge on all sides, is there still hope for love between the diplomat and her pet?Written forLenector Weekend 2021, organised by the excellentBakedTofu. Femdom fans, don't miss out on their exquisite fics![CW: I've chosen not to use archive warnings, as I'm not sure how extremely people interpret terms like "graphic" and "non-con". But this fic does stay in the realm of canon, so series-typical violence takes place late in the story, and the slave ring is a consistent theme. I've rated M, rather than E, as much of the story does not contain explicit sex, but explicit sex will take place. Each chapter will include specific warnings.]
Relationships: Hector/Lenore (Castlevania)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 22





	1. Timing Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hector and Lenore speak in the immediate aftermath of the reveal of the slave ring in the council chamber (S3, ep10). Lenore's sisters inform her of an important forthcoming visit and present her with a new role in the scheme.
> 
> Song: [France 1184, Harry Gregson-Williams (Kingdom of Heaven OST)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6vyn7TlyK8&list=PLfXrKwcZ25PbPJ79x3CYGpIQ-IBrukuPb)

_“I made you into my pet.”_

Hector stumbled through the cold, grey corridors of the castle, the starlight catching like cobwebs in the corner of his eye. His vision reeled, his stomach heaved, his breath came short and sharp, each intake of the icy air like a dart shooting into his chest. Lenore pulled him helplessly by the hand, her quick step making him trip, reminding him cruelly of his clumsiness, of his horrible habit of falling into captivity and danger and tragedy.

_“I made you into my pet.”_

What did that mean? For him? For _them_ ? Weren’t they a “ _them_ ”? He replayed the scene in the council chamber over and over.

_“These are slave rings, one of them found its way onto Hector's hand…”_

_“The vampire sister had her own scheme all along.”_

_“He was inside me at the time.”_

Lenore’s callous, triumphant smile stung behind his eyes. He remembered drifting towards her, like a flower drawn to sunshine. The bile in his gut curdled at the memory of how long he’d taken to really understand what she was saying. His kind Lenore. His clever Lenore. His loving Lenore, who was going to care for him and make him laugh and set him free. When she boasted of his enslavement, of using his body, of fooling him and binding him and gifting him to his greatest fears, he hadn’t been able to fully process her words. It was like she was speaking from behind a dense pane of glass. He’d kept stepping towards her, trying to whisper to her, trying to touch her, so certain that if he could just make her look at him she would stop and remember how much she treasured him. But then she had looked at him. Really looked at him, with her eyes hard as rubies. 

_“The real people are talking.”_

Being with Lenore was the first time he’d felt like a real person.

His mistake.

_“And if he ever tries to harm us, or take it off, or run away, his ring will cause him so much pain that he'll think he'll have shat out his own heart.”_

His stomach heaved again.

_“Problem solved.”_

His eyes pricked. He stared at the floor. His fleeting feet blurred on the smooth paving beneath him. 

Lenore pulled him to a door, opened it, and led him inside. She tugged hard on his hand, making him stumble forward past her into the room. Warm, white-gold lights flared on the walls, illuminating a pleasant bedchamber, furnished modestly, but stylishly, one wall cloaked in a tapestry embroidered with a pack of collared hounds racing through green and silver woods. Hector hugged his middle.

The door clicked closed behind him.

Lenore let out a taut breath, her voice came crisp on the tail of a sigh. “Well done, Hector, that went extremely smoothly.”

He turned to look at her properly for the first time since it had happened. Since it had all come apart around him. She stood at the door, her rich, autumn-coloured hair dressing her narrow shoulders, her dark dress rippling from the lingering swish of her gait, her china-doll face as cool and sweet and achingly beautiful as ever. Her expression was utterly unfazed. You would never have guessed she’d just filleted his heart like a sole.

“Smoothly?” Hector echoed incredulously, his voice scorching his throat. “That’s how you’d describe what just happened? Smooth?”

Lenore shrugged, folding her hands in front of her. “Yes.”

Hector staggered back and raked his hands into his hair. The ring scraped his scalp. His head was spinning. “You lied to me!” he jabbered, repeating the horror of it more to himself than to her. He had to make himself believe it. “You used me! And you threw me to the lions!”

Lenore gave him a patient look, standing entirely still, as he paced hotly around the room. “I didn’t lie, Hector.”

“You did!” he yelped. “You made me think -” He couldn’t say it.

Lenore raised her fine eyebrows coolly. “What did I make you think?”

Hector’s chest felt pierced. He stammered wordlessly for a moment, then spluttered, “It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t true.”

She took a single step towards him, controlled and slow. He felt pushed by a matching magnetic force. “Tell me what you thought, and I’ll tell you if it was true.”

He forced himself to meet her eyes, like looking at an eclipse through a telescope. Her gaze burned like frostbite. He huffed gruffly and strode away, folding his arms tightly, firmly putting his back to her.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t leave.

The silence clawed his skin. He could hear her breathing, soft and steady. Everything inside him hurt. 

“Why are we in this room?” he asked bitterly, not turning to face her.

Her footsteps padded behind him, encroaching closer, stroking up his spine. She walked rhythmically around to face him, staying a dozen feet away. “It’s a guest room,” she explained casually. “I thought it would do for you while we convert that outbuilding.”

“You mean my kennel,” he snarled.

The corner of her mouth twisted. “If you like.” She gestured over her shoulder to the vast, canopied bed, with its clean, inviting, sage sheets. “There’s a nice big bed and everything, just as I promised.”

Hector’s pulse skipped. He clenched his fists under his arms. “You promised me nothing in there. You condemned me.”

Her face hardened, snow turning to ice. “I saved your life.”

“You took my life!” Hector’s voice cracked, as it burst out of him. His eyes sprang hot again. His body was uncomfortably tacky and musky under his clothes, sex still clinging to him like oil. “You said we were running away together! You said I could come with you and be yours!”

“I said we could run. We could. We just aren’t. And I said you could _come_ with me, which technically you did.”

His face flushed. His tongue tied. 

“So, when did I lie to you?” She held his eye like bait on a hook. 

“I… You…” Hector scrabbled desperately in his mind. “Don’t play with words!”

She raised her chin, her voice remaining infuriatingly calm, proud cliffs against his battering waves. “I don’t play with words. Words are my tools, and I’m good at using them. You have your forge hammer, Morana has her maps, Striga has her axes, Carmilla has her charisma. I have my words.”

“You know what was implied!”

Lenore exhaled patiently through her nose. She smoothed her dress. “This is what I tried to talk to you about in the cells, Hector. You rely too much on implications. To you, loyalty and safety and love are implied and inferred. That isn’t how it is for me. I told you, I am a diplomat, I deal in commerce. There is no ‘implied’ in commerce. No negotiation document is about spirit or presumption or faith. It sets clear terms. Everything not explicitly stated is not part of the treaty. I did not explicitly state that we would leave. I did not explicitly state that you would be set free. I explicitly asked you to be loyal to me. You explicitly said yes. I explicitly said you would be safe, comfortable and respected. My sisters explicitly said yes.”

Hector let her words seep into him. They dyed the clear river of his anger the colour of her eyes. He shook his head violently. “We were not negotiating terms.”

She tilted her head, like a robin. “Then what were we doing?”

His heart panged. He shrank back a little, his defiant stance crumpling. “We were…” His voice dwindled woundedly. “We were… being together.”

A flicker of amusement in her bright iris. “Do you not negotiate sex? Do you think it just happens without agreement?”

“No!” He rubbed his eyes agitatedly with his fingertips. Talking to Lenore was like being in a labyrinth full of signs telling you where to go written in a foreign language. “No, but…” He drew his hands down, eyes bloodshot. “Sex is not diplomacy. Their contexts are different.”

She genuinely seemed to consider this. She paused and finally took her eyes away from his face. She looked at the tapestry, gaze chasing the hounds through the silver shimmer. The yellow light of the chandelier soaked her hair spun-gold. “They aren't different for me. At least…” She flicked her gaze back, twin red lamps swivelling to blind him. “...not often.” She regarded him a moment, then exhaled again. “Remember, I don’t come from your time or place. In my life, sex and diplomacy have gone hand in hand. Relationships weren’t divided into political and personal. It didn’t dishonour a friend or lover to do business with them. Hector, the two of us spoke, and I got something, you got something: a forgemaster for a real position with security and payment and protection. And we fucked.” Her eyes glittered. “You got something, I got something.”

Her voice was lilting and metric, it was like listening to poetry. He could feel it lulling him, even as knives sliced his organs. He grit his teeth and glared down at her. “A lie by omission is still a lie. You did not tell me what the ring does.”

Lenore’s face dimmed a little. Her eyes moved over his clenched jaw. She half nodded. She turned aside and wandered to the window, moonlight slipping over her form and turning her to polished pearl. She looked out into the night. “Diplomats don’t lie,” she said at last. “We just time our truths.”

Hector frowned. His arms dropped from across his body. “What does that mean?”

She wet her lip. The moonlight kissed it, shining the colour of maple leaves. “You are not my slave, Hector. The ring can hurt you, yes, but only if you try to hurt us first or leave, neither of which you were ever going to do without me. Aside from that, it does not control you. I will not use it. Not to force you into sex, or make you work for us, or make you accept our command. The ring is an insurance policy, nothing more. After all, only one of us has ever tried to strangle the other.” She caught his eye and smirked. She held it as she sank to sit in the window seat. 

He instinctively moved towards her, then stopped himself. “Even if I think for a moment that that’s true, am I supposed to expect Carmilla and the rest of your so-called sisters not to use it like that?”

Her gaze became sly and victorious. “You didn’t swear loyalty to Carmilla or my sisters. Only to me. The ring bound you to me. It protects the others. But the power to wield it is mine alone.” She trailed her fingernail over her neck. “I’m not a great sharer. Not of certain things.”

Hector blinked. He fought to recall her words in the council chamber through the din of terror.

_“He's bound to me through the spell on these rings.”_

He looked up at her, wide-eyed. Her mouth lifted into a cunning smile. 

“So…” He spoke cautiously, tipping between relief and rage. “I’m not… a slave?”

She kicked one foot over the other and leaned back on her palms, her tone flippant. “You’re staff. It’s not the primal ideal of liberty, but we live in an age of finance and hierarchy, so it’s one of the better deals.”

Hector turned her words over and over in his head, like he was counting coins. They kept slipping through his fingers. He hurried to her and sat opposite her in the window, her stunning beauty in the moonlight driving a dagger into his heart. He reached out to take her hands. He stopped himself and balled his fists in his lap. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he pleaded.

She looked at him almost pityingly, the way a governess looks at an especially dense pupil. “When humans panic, they release chemicals into their bloodstream. Vampires can literally smell fear shooting around your lovely body. If you'd been comfortable and consenting in the council room, they never would have believed me that you’d been claimed for the operation.”

“Is it so hard to believe I would have comfortably agreed? Carmilla herself found me at Dracula’s court.”

“Yes." She arched an eyebrow. "Then Carmilla herself beat you, starved you, dragged you in chains up a mountain, stripped you, imprisoned you, and mocked you. She may be blunt, but she’s no fool. She would never expect your happy allyship.”

Hector's brow buckled. He looked deeply into Lenore’s moon-bathed face. “Not even for you?”

Lenore smiled a caressing smile and tutted. “That isn’t how she thinks. Play the player, not the game. Vampires deal in fear and compulsion, so that’s what needs to be in your deck when you draw your hand.”

It made sense. He hated that it made sense. He hated that every time he was sure of himself, that he was righteously angry and calling for escape, she would whisper from the mouth of his cage and he’d find himself ambling contentedly back in and closing the door behind him. Not this time. He mustn’t this time. 

“Lenore,” he said, almost apologetically, “you have to see that, as long as I’m wearing this ring against my will, you betrayed my trust.”

He waited for her to deny it. His heart murmured to him that he wanted her to, that he wanted her to explain this away, teach him his errors and straighten him out on the path of their togetherness again. His ears pricked and he stared needily into her eyes, willing her to tell him why he was wrong.

Her smile faded. She raised her chin defiantly. “There are worse things in this world than betrayal." 

Hector felt winded. His throat went dry, his stomach lurched. He leaped to his feet and cast his hands into the air. “Like _what_?” 

She stood too, a harsh wind whipping around her with the squeal of a swarm of bats, fangs flashing, hair and veil flailing. “Like death! Like having your guts ripped out and used to tie your ankles to a runaway horse! Like being force-fed hemlock in front of a cheering crowd! Like being thrown to a battalion of vampire soldiers who haven’t fed in a week! Your indignation is a luxury of the living, Hector. A luxury you only have because I made that decision for you. I had the choice between wounding your pride and watching you die. No amount of your moral scorn is going to make me regret my actions.”

The wind whisked away. Her dress stilled, her hair drifted around her face. Her cold eyes melted into magma. 

Hector stared at her, his pulse thrumming, his mouth open but silent.

She put her hands on her hips and released a tense, hissing breath, looking down, her shoulders drawing up. She breathed again and forced her shoulders square. She tossed her head back up and spoke levelly. “Like I said, I’ve never lied. We truly don’t need a forgemaster. Morana’s mercenaries have made night creatures unnecessary. But we want one.” Her face flickered. “I want one.” She took her hands off her hips and folded them neatly over her middle again. “But you are not indispensable. And without that security, I needed another measure to make you safe.” Her boiling eyes swirled to a sweet syrup, her hands spread. “Don’t you see? You’re safe, now. Safe. Safe like you’ve never been before. Safe like you’d forgotten to search for.” 

She stepped briskly to him, out of the wash of pale moonlight and into the warm, welcoming gold of the electric lights. She cupped his face. Her touch seized his spine and stopped his breath, enthralling and unnerving at once. He tried to pull away, but somehow he couldn’t move. She was looking up into his eyes with mesmerising heat. His head ducked against his will, his face sinking into her clasp.

“You will survive this, Hector,” she said earnestly. “You’re strong. You’re brave. If you can’t forgive me, fine, at least you’re alive. I knew that all I had to do was keep you alive and you would do the rest for yourself.”

A tremor went through Hector’s body. He ached brutally. His eyes pricked again and he blinked rapidly, his throat straining. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and exhausted. “I didn’t swear to you for safety. I swore to you because you were kind." He leaned his cheek into her fingers. "All I’ve ever wanted was for someone to be kind, and I thought I’d finally found that, and then…” He choked, his tongue thickened. There was a smouldering sensation under his eyes. He turned his face into her palm, like a kitten needing comfort.

She whipped her hand away. 

His cheek was left cold and smarting from the graze of her fingernails. He blinked and looked at her. Her severe eyebrows arched dangerously. Her fangs sharpened over her full lower lip. Her fingers curled at her sides, the long nails glinting. Her small chest bobbed up and down in only half-controlled breaths. 

"And then _what_?" she spat. "I did this one thing and now nothing else between us counts?" She scoffed harshly. “Why is it that a man can lay waste to all of Wallachia? Can treat his loyal generals like dirt? Pollute the world until no one, vampire or human, can eat? Can attack his own son? Can besmirch the memory of his wife? Can declare war on order and compassion itself? And still be loved and followed because at least he showed his masculine passions? But a woman sheds as little blood as possible, does everything in her power to protect someone to whom she has no obligation, rewrites the ways of her species so that the earth can have balance and thrive, and preserves it all by withholding one detail of a universally beneficial plan, and she's hated for it because she managed to keep a cool head?”

Hector’s lip quivered.

Lenore stood perfectly still. Her anger wasn’t frantic and trembling, like his. It was a spear soaring in a mathematical arc. “The world of men equips its sons with one all-powerful tool: ego. They fight with it, hunt with it, rule with it, and punish anyone who tarnishes it. And we all just accept it. Dracula’s ego was hurt, he burned the world. You never questioned it. Women are given nothing. We equip ourselves. We arm ourselves. I chose words. I chose non-violence. I chose diplomacy. What else was there for me? My ego would always be called vanity. My passion would always be called hysteria. So I used my tools. A tiny trick of the light to have everything we both want. And now I’m the villain. I’m the harlot. I’m the bitch. The dishonest woman who hurt a man’s ego.”

“I’m not talking about ego!” Hector blurted desperately. “I would have crawled on my knees for you, if I thought I was crawling towards your kindness!”

“I was kind,” she snarled. “And I still am. Kindness is not selflessness. I needed this condition, this one condition on all the gifts I’m giving you, and I will continue to give you. Happily. Generously. Indulgently. Manipulation is what men call compromise. We both had desires, they were satisfied. We both had sacrifices, they were made. I get my pet, my forgemaster, and the respect of my sisters, with a little loss of love. You get your cause, your work, and a good life, with a little loss of will. Win, win. Lose, lose.”

Hector stood in the echo of her intoxicating anger, feeling hollowed out and shaken. He swallowed. He rubbed the ring on his finger, looking into her seraphim face. “Diplomacy,” he said quietly.

She rolled her shoulders and relaxed her frame, the coursing flame in her eyes dwindling. “Diplomacy.”

The room fell into silence. Hector could hear the lights humming and the crunch of wagon wheels on the snow outside, as the servants moved supplies about the courtyard. He looked long into Lenore’s face, feeling like matches were being held to his pupils, but afraid to look away and find out how much he missed the sight of her. She met his gaze unreadably.

She broke the link between them and swept past him to the door. Her voice came clipped and business-like again, as she strode. “This room locks from the inside. The key is in the top right desk drawer. You will be measured for new clothes. Food will be served in the parlour, but you may request to have it brought here, along with anything else you want. You’ll be assigned a servant, but no guard.” She reached the door. Her delicate hand floated to the handle and rested there, like a moth. 

Hector watched her, his heart straining against his ribs.

She spoke again, a sprinkle of sugar returning to her tone. “You still have your advantage, you know.” 

Hector frowned.

She half turned back, catching his eye with a glimmer in her own. “I like you.”

She turned the handle and slipped out of sight.

Hector hugged his waist and dropped to his knees. 

*

Lenore coursed down the corridors, twisting her hands together, sucking in the cool air to cleanse herself of the clinging heat from being near Hector. Her fur cloak felt heavy, a film of sweat on the back of her neck. Her core still hummed. She snorted and shook out her hands.

_“You betrayed my trust.”_

What about her trust? Hadn't she trusted him to believe in her? To let her work? To let her fix things? Didn’t he trust her to keep him safe? To know what’s best? She was centuries old. This was her world, her sisters. This was a vampire scheme, dream, whatever. A few months at Dracula’s court did not mean he understood where he was or what he was involved in. He’d acknowledged himself that vampires were another culture. She and her sisters were not just another human political faction. They did not live on his terms. A dog doesn’t bite his mistress when she pretends to throw a ball then tucks it into their pocket. He respects that Mistress is playing a game, that Mistress wants him to have a nice day outside. He trusts that Mistress will toss the real ball eventually, and he runs every time because he knows it’s coming. He doesn’t question Mistress. He knows Mistress cares and is doing what he needs. 

_“A lie by omission is still a lie.”_

And she was the one that played with words? If he was just going to expand the definition of cruelty to whatever he didn’t like, then he would never notice any kindness. 

_“I would have crawled on my knees for you, if I thought I was crawling towards your kindness!”_

Would he still? She couldn’t possibly be any kinder. She would if she could, it was so delicious how he responded to it. How he inched towards her and settled into her rhythm, like a unicorn lassoed with a grass rope. She thought with a gnaw of frustration in her belly about how she’d intended that conversation to go. When she’d hushed him in the council chamber, she’d shot him a look that said _“Don’t ruin this for us, let me handle it.”_ She’d had to cover it with that quip about the real people talking, but she’d thought even Hector wasn’t blunt enough to miss her meaning. She’d looked right into his eyes, as softly as she could in company, and made her promise, _"It's going to be nice. He's going to live just as well as we do. He gets something back from this. He gets a comfortable life. He gets to feel safe."_ She was supposed to let him make a show of being scared, then get him in private, properly explain the ring, and calm him down with his pretty head in her lap. Having all these principles of autonomy had come as rather a surprise from the boy who had greeted his jailor with a smile every time she visited.

She thought about his smile. His shy, curious, simple smile.

_“We were… being together.”_

A weight pressed a little on her heart. She sniffed sharply, rolled her shoulders back, and flexed her fingers. She tugged her fur collar open and let the cool night balm her chest.

She clacked past the council chamber.

“Sister!”

She halted at the sound of Striga’s strident voice from the room. She puffed out the last of her frustration and stepped inside.

Her sisters were lounging around the table, the sweet scent of blood slicking into the air from their crystal goblets. The fire murmured contentedly in the hearth, infusing the blood with the sleepy, earthy scent of wood smoke.

“Finished with him already?” Carmilla drawled. “I thought you said he was good in bed.”

Lenore laughed haughtily through her nose, swishing to the drinks cabinet and pouring herself a fine, virgin vintage from a fluting decanter. “I’m letting him rest so he’s of better use tomorrow.” She turned and tipped her glass to Carmilla. “Some of us take care of our toys.”

Carmilla licked her teeth and drank, a smear of blood on her precisely painted lip. 

“Well, it’s good you came back, because you’re not the only one who had surprise good news,” Morana said, gesturing demurely for Lenore to join them.

Lenore raised her eyebrows curiously. She came to the table and slipped into one of the high-backed, ornamented chairs, propping her elbows on the table and tenting her fingers. 

“We may be getting a new sister,” Morana said, her trademark graceful smile broadening.

Lenore’s chest tightened. “What?”

“Possibly,” Striga corrected flatly. “If she agrees to support us and if she falls in line.”

Lenore dropped her fingers to the stem of her glass and rubbed it. “Who is it?”

Morana indicated Carmilla.

Carmilla’s eyes flashed, like dawn glancing an icicle. “Chō.”

“Chō?” Lenore perked up. “Lady of the Hidden Court? One of Dracula’s generals?”

“Yes.”

“The generals you betrayed?”

“Yes.”

“Who were all slaughtered by your troops and the Belmont mutt?”

Carmilla’s lips thinned. “Yes.”

Lenore cocked her head and batted her eyes sarcastically. “You can imagine why I’m confused.”

Carmilla sneered and flicked her straight, sheer hair. “Happens to the best of us.”

Lenore pursed her lips.

Carmilla reclined in her chair and took a noisy glug of thick blood, enjoying making everyone wait. She smacked her lips and continued, her voice oozing with arrogance and echoing off the high dome. “Chō switched to my side shortly before the reckoning. Her ability to emit poison from her palms makes her an ideal hidden weapon. She could easily fight within the fray, appearing to be on Dracula’s side, while subtly weakening the other generals with the lightest touches. If we were successful, we would have come to Styria together. If Dracula had somehow beaten me back, she would have been able to stay as a spy.” She drank again, her pointed tongue flickering. “Unfortunately, the Belmont mutt, as you so eloquently call him, rather threw a stick in the spokes. I believed Chō to have been killed by a speaker magician, of all things. Frozen while in mist form and shattered. It was a nasty scene, very sticky, my one surviving soldier said. But I received word from her this evening. She was grievously wounded, but when the ice melted and evaporated, she was able to reform, escape, and recover. She now wishes to meet with us and revisit our alliance.”

Lenore absorbed Carmilla’s words carefully, fingers strumming up and down the stem of her glass, brow crinkled in thought.

“Well?” Carmilla prompted harshly. “You’re the fucking diplomat, aren’t you glad?”

Lenore began to shuffle the cards in her mind, drawing various hands, replacing, reshuffling, drawing again. Chō was intelligent, thorough, artful, and hungry. All assets. But she was also ruthless and unpredictable, prone to hedonism and theatre. Risks. Lenore clucked her tongue.

Carmilla groaned and thunked her glass down. “There’s no pleasing some people.” She stood, her chair scraping on the floor and making everyone’s fingernails buzz. “Anyway, Morana wants to talk to you about party planning, or some such thing.” She waved dismissively and sauntered out of the room. 

Lenore’s eyes followed her warily, then darted to Morana. “Party planning?”

Morana nodded, her sapphire eyes warming to cobalt. “Lenore, I can see your brain ticking. You have probably already worked out that Chō would be a powerful ally, and worse enemy. As much as her visit will allow us to decide if we want to let her into the fold, it is also for her to decide about us.”

Striga leaned around her wife to pick up her train in a gruff, straightforward tone. “If she perceives us as weak, she won’t just leave disappointed. She’ll see a possible vacuum of power. All of Dracula’s momentum has passed to us. If a vampire as seasoned and vicious as Chō seizes that momentum, she’ll have all of Christendom in the poisoned palm of her hand before next year. And she knows that.”

“Then should we really be inviting her?” Lenore asked.

“Better treat her as an equal now than a superior later,” Morana said.

Lenore nodded. She sipped from her glass. The blood coated her tongue and sharpened her senses, oiled the gears in her ticking mind. “So we need to charm her,” she said, understanding dawning. “We need a welcome for her that makes her feel like it’s better to be with us than instead of us.”

Morana nodded. 

Striga grunted. “I’m still not a great supporter of this part of the scheme.”

Morana gave her wife an amused smile, mirrored by Lenore, as she glanced affectionately at the pair of them. 

Morana threaded her fingers together and slid forward along the table to look sincerely into Lenore’s eyes. She spoke with vigour. “Lenore, Sister, you showed us tonight that you are exactly what we need to get Chō on side. I am cool-headed and her passion for the grotesque will not like me. Striga is pragmatic and her flare will be frustrated. Carmilla has her same spark, but where Chō is a duelling blade, Carmilla is a mallet. A brute. But what you did with that forgemaster. You are a sadist, Lenore, a true sadist. An artist and a surgeon in one. If Chō is to fall for any of us, it will be you.”

Lenore’s mouth formed a delicate “o”. She stared in surprise into Morana’s eager face. _A true sadist_. At first, she recoiled, the pain on Hector’s face popping behind her eyes. Then she tasted the word on her tongue. It mixed pleasantly with the tingle of blood. Hector’s overcome, impassioned, shocked pleading on the edge of climax and capture chased the image of sorrow from her mind. 

She glanced between her sisters. A small, sly smile sneaked over her lips. “Then a party we shall have.”


	2. Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hector processes his confrontation with Lenore by imagining talking to Isaac. He and Lenore negotiate some rules to stabilise his new life.
> 
> [CW: Reference to past experiences of abuse and gaslighting.]
> 
> Song: [Shouldn't You Know When Someone is Pretending, Sonya Belousova & Giona Ostinelli (The Witcher OST)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df5UmtHsDBE)

“Carmilla’s right, she has fucking adopted you.” Isaac stood in the corner of Hector’s new bedroom, leaning against the stone wall with his arms folded, his polished chestnut eyes gleaming.

“She has not,” Hector grumbled, shuffling his feet on the low stool he was standing on and glancing around his new bedroom. 

The vampire tailor busied himself about Hector with quick, precise movements, measuring his spread arms and across his shoulders. He was as tall as Hector on the stool and thin as a rake, his amber eyes keen and his white hair swept back off his face to show his pointed ears. He moved soundlessly and made no eye contact or conversation whatsoever. Even after months in close quarters with vampires, Hector found him eerie. It was somehow quieter with him in the room than without him, the same way ghosts make you feel. Hector wrinkled his nose against his pungent scent; a heavy, floral perfume covering the lingering aroma of sheep’s urine used in dying cloth. 

As Hector often did when he found himself in too much quiet, he pretended he was with Isaac. Isaac suited quiet. He didn’t mind talking and his mind was far more active and thorned than Hector’s. Talking to him was like learning to see new colours in the clouds. So Hector stood still and cooperative, and he asked an imaginary Isaac what he thought about Lenore, playing the conversation silently in his head and hoping the tailor didn't notice him drift. 

“She has adopted you,” Isaac insisted in a slightly bored tone, the shadow in the corner of the room picking out the smattering of pockmarks down the left side of his face. “You have a cosy room and nice food and fine clothing. She pets your hair and calls you pretty and bestows pleasant kisses on you. You’re a kept man.”

“Is that so bad?” Hector asked hesitantly, his lips fidgeting as he pretended to speak out loud. “Is it so different to what we were for Dracula? He fed us, clothed us, protected us, praised our work.”

“We shared a cause with Dracula.” Isaac’s deep voice rumbled a little. “We shared his passion.”

“You shared his cause,” Hector corrected steadily. “I didn’t want carnage. I wanted humanity curtailed, not to destroy the earth.”

“You wanted to have your cake and eat it.” Isaac’s voice was barbed satin. “You do things by halves, Hector. You hate humanity, but you won’t wipe it out. You killed your mother, but sometimes you wonder what it would be like to have a family. You even brought that dog back to half a life. You won’t live. But you won’t accept death. You crave immortality. But you stagnate in even a mortal amount of time.” Isaac bowed his head and drove his hard gaze against Hector. “Dracula was a zealot. That is why I was loyal to him. You are not a zealot. You are a lost boy looking for something to want.” He shrugged and dusted his dark blue sleeve. “In that way, Lenore is perfect for you.”

Hector frowned. “That’s not fair. I share a cause with Lenore, with all of them. They want humanity under control. That is my cause.”

“That is not a cause. That is an agricultural project,” Isaac said levelly. “They want easy access to food and a secure status in the world. There is no faith or passion in that. You go to market and buy eggs and apples, it is not the same as going to Church.” He prowled around the edge of the room until he reached the neat desk positioned against the wall. He pulled out the chair and sat in it, bending forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers interlaced. He looked down mournfully. “Dracula was going to Church.”

“I never liked Church.” Hector smiled wryly, even in reality.

The tailor ducked and looped the tape measure around his waist. It pinched a little. Lenore had clearly ordered well-fitted garments.

“I liked market though,” Hector continued, trying to suppress his smile so the tailor didn’t see. “People always brought their dogs with them and there was the smell of fresh bread. And you didn’t have to know what to say. You just had to pick out things you wanted and hand over your coins.”

“Commerce,” Isaac said darkly.

Hector faltered. He looked down, cheeks prickling. “Yes.”

Isaac sighed. He raised his head and locked his fingers tighter together between his knees, his red sash draped over his thigh. “You and I were a strange sort of friends. We never spoke the same language.”

The tailor whisked to Hector’s back, regarding his figure in his loose fitting shirt. He gathered the fabric in a bunch to see Hector’s shape more clearly. Hector looked down at his lithe, underfed form. He thought of how Lenore had run her hands over his torso, how thrillingly intimate that first skin to skin touch had been.

“She’s a spoiled girl,” Isaac cut into his memories harshly. “She’s a greedy, callous nothing and you’re going to go from being the artisan for an architect of righteous revenge, to the doll-maker for a shallow brat.”

Hector nearly launched off his stool. He ground his teeth and balled his fists at his side. “That’s not true!” He coughed to keep himself from shouting out loud at the tailor. “Lenore is more an architect than Dracula ever was! She understands the world. She understands herself. She understands me. She doesn’t destroy on impulse, but that doesn’t mean she has no feeling or depth. It just means she has control. She is in control. That takes courage. That takes strength. That takes intelligence. Dracula was greedy. His revenge had no limits. Lenore keeps things in balance. She does what’s best for the greater picture." His mind hurtled between memories of her sweet, witty smile and the terrifying woman standing over him, the last of the bat wings vanishing under her skin. "She’s so full of power and rage, but she denies herself so that she can be part of a whole. She can make something real and lasting, something that works, something that makes sense, that does good, that…” He blushed hot and trailed off.

Isaac looked at him with a bland, patient expression. “So, what’s your problem? Fall for her. Serve her. Have everything you want. You don’t need my approval.”

“But I do!” Hector whined, his throat clogging in reality. “You’re cleverer than me. You were always the one who knew what to do. Every time I made a decision, it turned out wrong!”

Isaac sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The tailor whipped the tape measure unannounced around Hector’s throat. The pressure made him fleetingly light-headed. It wasn’t unpleasant. 

“You and this woman,” Isaac said into his palm, “you speak the same language.”

“Do we?” Hector let out a faint laugh in his mind. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“That’s because she’s better at it than you.”

Hector sucked his lips into a flat line.

“What was the first thing you asked her for?” Isaac took on the tone of a teacher, as he often had with Hector.

Hector thought for a moment, recalling the stony scent of the jail cell. “Shoes.”

The tailor dropped to crouch and flash the tape measure around Hector’s legs and feet. 

“Not freedom.” Isaac rotated his hand. “Shoes.”

“Yes.”

“Why not freedom?”

Hector folded his shoulders forward a little. The tailor prodded him to straighten up. “Because I knew she wouldn’t give that to me.”

“But you asked for it later.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought maybe there was a chance…”

“A chance that Lenore was your route to freedom?”

“I suppose…”

“She was, to you, in many ways, synonymous with freedom.”

“Look.” Hector warmed on the back of his neck. The tailor was starting to feel uncomfortably close. “When I told her I wanted freedom, I was just saying it, alright? Not everything I say has a motive or a plan. I was just saying it. I didn’t like being imprisoned, so I said I wanted to be free.”

“You were being defiant.”

“Yes.”

“Standing up for yourself.”

“Yes!”

“Because you knew you were safe to do so with her.”

“Yes! What? No, I…” Hector bit his tongue. The words were spinning out of control in his head. 

The imaginary Isaac watched him like an alchemist watches cooking lead, pouring compounds on it to make it react. “When you bedded her, how did you feel?”

The tailor zipped his hand up the inside of Hector’s leg and nudged his crotch. He jumped. “Um… Good.”

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Good?”

“Yes.”

“Free?”

“Uh…” Hector chewed his tongue. He folded one arm across his body and ferreted his fingers around his elbow joint. “Yes,” he admitted.

“And in that moment,” Isaac coursed on, “when you felt the most free you have in a long, long time, you pledged yourself to Lenore. You willingly gave yourself up.”

“I didn’t know what she meant!” A throaty squeak escaped Hector’s lips. The tailor ignored him, measuring the inside of his other leg, his touch agitating Hector’s thigh.

Isaac shrugged. “Maybe not the fullness of it. But you threw yourself into serving her. If you were a servant on non-magical terms, you’d still be punished for any of the things the ring prohibits.” He toyed with the buckle of his arm guard. “It doesn’t matter that that trinket makes it harder for you to break the rules. You still agreed to the rules.”

Hector in the real world opened his mouth to argue. He shut it hastily and kept fiddling with his elbow. “Sex is a judgement killer," he grumbled internally. 

Isaac’s eyes dimmed. He flexed his shoulders, warping the scars on his back under his uniform jacket. “Sex is a logic killer,” he corrected. “But it sharpens the baser instincts. Your encounter with her tells you nothing about what it would be wise to do, but whatever you wanted in that embrace is, I promise you, the thing you always most desire.” He interlaced his fingers again and spoke bitterly to the floor. “I died for love once. It was a sad, pathetic thing.” He lifted his gaze and it was flint hard and ember bright and resolute. “But I have never doubted what I want or what I believe or what I must do since.”

Hector rummaged through this imagined conversation with a crumpled brow. The tailor stepped to his front and began holding swatches of silk up to his face, various shades of blue with the occasional stripe of crimson or green or grey. Hector avoided the hawk eyes flitting about his features. He thought about Lenore’s eyes on him, about feeling… pretty.

“So,” he said silently to Isaac, “you’re saying I should just give into her. Have the life she’s offering me and not worry about my freedom.”

Isaac let loose a soft growl under his breath, the one that said Hector had been too simple for too long in their discussion. “I’m saying that that worry stems from ineffective questions. Freedom is a lie, my friend. To be human is to be in bondage. We are imprisoned by our pasts and our religions and our societies and our bodies. All we can do is decide what we do within that cage. What we want in the limits of our captivity. Neither of us ever wanted freedom. I wanted power and you wanted love.”

Love. The word burned Hector’s insides, but filled him with light. His eyes pricked. He blinked and sucked on his lip. “Power in bondage? Love in bondage?”

“Is that truly the greatest madness you've heard of in this world?”

Hector disguised his conceding chuckle with an exhale that flicked the wisps of the tailor’s white hair. He shot Hector a displeased look and tucked away the silk swatches. He stepped aside and began packing up his equipment. 

Hector stepped off the stool, feeling suddenly peculiarly short. He took a few aimless paces, sweeping his hand through his hair. “So, what will you do now, Isaac, in your cage?”

Isaac rose softly from his seat. “I think I shall kill you. One day.”

Hector halted. He lowered his hand. He looked with a glimmer of pain at his companion’s stoic exterior and the inferno blazing within. He nodded slightly.

“But, for now,” Isaac said, “we can still talk.”

The tailor left.

Isaac followed him out.

The paths of the tape measure tingled all over Hector’s body. He suddenly wanted to be naked. He wanted to be naked and held, to have his hair pulled and his lip nibbled. And when his skin was peppered with pleasure, he wanted to be dressed in something handsome that suited him and felt nice against the marks from another’s mouth. He rubbed his face feverishly. He’d forgotten the uncomfortable side of talking to Isaac. Isaac was wise and dignified and he didn’t enjoy anything. All his energy came from his single-minded goal. His purpose. Isaac was perfect. He was unshakeable. Untemptable. And Hector so wanted to be like that too, but he just… wasn’t. He liked flowers. He liked brooks running through green grass. He liked animals. He liked red grapes and beaches and the smell of clean laundry. He liked forging. He liked talking. He liked kissing. He knew what Lenore had offered would degrade him, and that a proud, faithful, resilient man like Isaac, like Hector had aimed to be, would be appalled at the prospect. A pet? It was humiliating. 

Dehumanising. 

But, then…

He’d always thought animals were better than humans anyway… 

_ Holy Mother, how are you considering this? _

He combed his fingers into his hair and twisted at the roots to shock himself alert with stinging. The ring tangled in a stray strand and pulled cruelly. He hissed. 

_ You’re trapped. That’s what you have to remember. You’re in a house with people that frighten you and have power over you and might hurt you at any moment. So you’re doing what you did last time in that situation. You’re trying to survive. This desire for Lenore is just a survival instinct. So put it away and do what you learned to do before. _

He marched to the desk and hunted tempestuously in the drawers. With a bolt of relief, he found what he needed: a quill and inkpot and a stack of blank paper. He spread the paper on the desk, dipped the pen hurriedly, splattering ink over his hand, and began to scribble.

_ Rule One. Do not stand less than three feet from a vampire without being invited to do so. _

He racked his brain, rifling through every memory he’d collected since Carmilla first hurled him into the snow with her fist.

_ Rule Two. Do not speak unless spoken to. _

_ Rule Three. Eat all food offered. _

He grit his teeth and brought to mind every instance of violence, every time he’d been hit or scolded or thrown to the floor. Then he carefully traced his steps backwards through the scene to find the catalyst for the incident.

_ Rule Four. No sudden movements. _

_ Rule Five. Only communicate with Carmilla through Lenore. If she initiates, say as little as possible and record consequences following. _

His pen scratched on the paper, the skittish rhythm of it stoking his anxiety, but calling him to plough on, write faster, recall more pains, more rules. This gave him control. This was the remedy. This kept him safe. Not Lenore. Not mercy or kindness. This. The rules. 

_ Rule Eight. Do not enter the council chamber unescorted. _

He scribbled like a man possessed.

_ Rule Twelve. Leave one side of the big bed open. _

_ Rule Fifteen. Keep self neat and presentable. _

_ Rule… _

“Hector?”

He started and spun on the desk chair, the legs screeching on the floorboards. His heart pounded, as he stared wide-eyed at the bedroom door. Lenore stood in a frame of cool light from the corridor, her brow furrowed.

“Lenore!” Hector stood breathlessly, batting at the papers scattered on the desk, trying to conceal them. All he did was push them about.

She closed the door softly behind her and walked to the desk. Her jasmine and wine scent brushed him, weakening his knees. She reached for the nearest page. Hector darted to snatch it before her, but she was too quick. She held the page up and frowned over it, her eyes speeding across the lines of spiky script. Hector’s palms broke into a sweat. He shrank backwards and winced.

Lenore’s eyes stilled on the page for a moment, the silence dragging down Hector’s spine.

When she looked up, her pupils were wide, sucking him in. “What is this?”

Hector gulped. “It’s… Uh…”

She flapped the page sharply and read from it in a wary tone. “'Rule Two. Do not speak unless spoken to.' That’s completely unnecessary, we converse quite fluidly all the time. 'Rule Three. Eat all food offered.' That’s insane, what if you have an allergy we’re not aware of? Or you aren’t hungry enough for the portion? You’ll make yourself ill.” She looked up firmly into his face, pinning him to the spot. “Who gave you these instructions?”

Hector’s cheeks coloured. His ears prickled. He avoided her eye. “No one,” he answered in a small voice. “I deduced them.”

“Deduced them?”

He rubbed his elbow, a little sore from how much he’d already fiddled with it during his fitting. She was standing too close, he hated having to look down at her. He eased a pace back and brushed his hair behind his ear. She kept hold of him with her glare, an inescapable web. He tugged his hair forward again, shadowing his face. Her gaze was peeling the layers off him and leaving his core exposed, like a dismantled clementine.

“When I was a boy,” he began tentatively, “I… I wasn’t well cared for. My mother…” He swallowed. His lip trembled.

Lenore’s fingers closed harder on the page she was holding, crackling in the quiet between them.

“My mother was always angry with me. I never understood why, what I was doing to make her hate me. But I knew I wasn’t clever. I knew I must be doing something and just not realising it. So every time she…” His tongue stopped and stuck to the roof of his mouth. He cleared his throat and forced it unstuck, his voice quavering and gruff. “I would write down everything I remembered from the lead up to it, then from that distil the fault that must have angered her. And with that I’d write a rule. No running indoors. No bringing mice into the house. No humming during dinner. Etcetera.” 

Lenore’s expression was stiff as steel. “Hector,” she said carefully, “your mother does not sound like she was reasonable with you.”

Hector shrugged. “Oh, no, she wasn’t at all.” He flexed his clammy hands. “That’s why I…” He cut himself off and cleared his throat again. “But fair wasn’t important. I just had to find the best way to live.”

“And this was it?” Lenore said sceptically. “With arbitrary, presumed rules?”

Hector nodded.

Lenore’s arm shot out like the tongue of a toad catching a fly. She snatched up another page and glared at it, then at him. “'Rule Four. No sudden movements.' Hector, this is no way to live.”

He shrugged. “It helps. I had a set for Dracula and his generals. Even a couple for Isaac. They’re not just about avoiding punishment, they help me to keep them wanting me around.”

The crevice in Lenore’s brow deepened, her eyes wheeling with wet light. Her fingers clenched on the paper. 

Hector’s stomach writhed. She was unhappy with him. “What’s wrong?” he asked hastily.

Lenore didn’t answer. She abruptly turned her body to the desk and clawed at it savagely, gathering the scattered sheets into her taloned, lethal hands. She spun in a billow of fur and gossamer and whooshed to the flickering hearth. The fire leaped up to meet her. She bared her fangs and cast the pages into the flames. They snarled and gobbled them up in an instant.

“Hey!” Hector barked.

She rounded on him and tore back to his side. His heart bucked and he stumbled backwards, banging his hip on the corner of the desk and gasping. Lenore descended on him like a hornet. His breath caught. She flew against his body.

And swept her arms gently around his neck.

Hector froze. 

She combed her fingers softly into his hair and cradled his head. Her touch was so gentle that his heart somersaulted, then slowed instantly, the tremors dissipating in his legs. 

She held his eye fiercely. “I wish you understood how much it pains me when you talk so casually of being treated like this.”

Hector raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Hector, no one should make you feel like you have to earn their compassion, and that every time it isn’t given it’s a failing on your part. When these people made you feel hurt or frightened or like you were going to lose them, you were not letting them down. Quite the opposite.”

Hector glanced sideways and back at her. Her flute curve waist was so close to his fingertips. He itched to hold her. He itched to hear more.

She went on firmly. “Hector, someone who says that you have to guess their needs doesn’t truly want you to fulfil them, and that means they aren’t worth the time you spend so sweetly trying to do that.”

He chewed his lip and released it, flushed peach. “But if I don’t, why would they keep me?”

Her mouth bloomed into a tender smile. “Because they like you.”

His heart squeezed. He went hot behind his ears. Lenore’s hands stroked down and laid over the back of his neck, holding him like a mother hound holds her pups by the scruff. He let the pressure tilt his head forward, deeper into her scent. A coil of her silken hair kissed his forehead. 

He tried to summon some resistance. “It’s somewhat rich, don’t you think? You condemning everyone who’s ever kept me in order before.”

Her fingers curled on his neck, the faint scratch on his nape sending a shudder through his body. A slight moan sneaked from his lips.

“That scribble is not order,” she said in a strengthening voice. “It’s an elephant scarer.”

Hector cocked his head. “A what?”

“An elephant scarer,” she explained. “A Wallachian farmer puts a strange contraption up in his field. His neighbour asks what it is. He says it’s an elephant scarer, to keep elephants away. His neighbour says ‘but there are no elephants in Wallachia.’ The farmer says, ‘No, of course not, I have an elephant scarer.’”

Hector continued to look nonplussed.

“The people you’ve been with up until now have made you feel insecure, they’ve behaved so unpredictably and secretively and extremely that they’ve filled you with fear of phantom punishments and attacks. You’ve created a nonsense doctrine to tell yourself there is rhyme and reason to it, that when the attacks don't come it's because you obeyed some hidden law, to tell yourself you have some semblance of control and safety. But there is no rhyme and reason. These people were irrational. And you bore the burden of it.” She sighed deeply. She moved one hand from his neck and stroked it down his face, her fingertips massaging his tensed temple. 

A ribbon of sensation snaked down his spine. His eyes fluttered closed briefly, then determinedly open, startled by her heated gaze.

“No more elephant scarers,” she commanded in a murmur that rolled through his abdomen. “You’re safe here, Hector.” She stroked to his shoulders and gripped him, her touch sinking into his muscles, like honey. “Really, actually safe. Without having to treasure hunt for it.”

He took a shaking breath. “Carmilla…”

“Is not welcome to interact with you," she stated. "Did you not notice in the council chamber last night, I removed her from the whole forging process? ‘Morana will make the arrangements. Striga will organise the forging. Carmilla will agree to all of this and live with it.’ She has no reason to so much as speak to you, and I stand between the two of you regardless. She understands you are under my protection. She may not like it, but she will respect it.”

Hector’s fingers floated forward against his will. His blood thrummed soothingly. His hands hovered at her waist.

“It’s alright, you can,” she whispered.

He closed his hands on her waist. They moulded to the shape of her. Relief flooded his body like alcohol. He breathed her perfume like drugged smoke and dropped his brow to press to hers, a point of extinguishing cool in his thudding, anxious heat. He closed his eyes.

She squeezed his shoulders and moved her hands to loop her arms around his neck again, pulling her body gently against his, not pressing too close, just enough to ground him. Her whisper enveloped him. “If rules make you feel good, Hector, then we can have them. But none of this guesswork. I told you, diplomats do not deal in implied and inferred. A treaty is not a living, temperamental creature. If you want rules, we will set them down together. They will be binding and unchanging. We will decide the penalties for breaking them in advance. All behaviour not covered by the code will not be rightfully punishable without negotiation. They will be realistic and clear and fulfilling. Do you want that?”

Hector could taste rosemary and mint on her breath, her mouth was so close to his. He couldn’t speak. His thumbs stroked her waist, his hands warming under her cloak. He nodded against her brow.

“Alright.” She pushed her forehead against his, cool dripping into his skin, then eased from his body, stepping lightly away.

Every inch of his flesh felt bereft. He shook himself and set his jaw.

She went to the bed, a few paces off from the desk, and sat demurely on it, hands folded in her lap. “Sit down, get some paper ready,” she instructed.

Hector nodded and moved to sit at the desk. He arranged a fresh stack of paper in front of him, this time in a neat pile, and dipped his quill. A globule of black ink dropped into the pot and rippled. He twisted to look at Lenore. She looked pensive.

“Let’s see,” she said, eyes flitting right and left, as the mechanisms in her mind whirred to life. “Let’s start with your position of employment. That seems to have been Dracula’s greatest failing, leaving it undefined.”

A smile slipped over Hector’s lips. “You wouldn’t say his greatest failing was planning to slaughter so many humans that vampires would not be able to feed and inevitably fall into cannibalism and then extinction.”

She shot him a daggering glance and spoke like a viper. “No. It was this.”

Hector blushed, pulse fluttering.

Lenore tossed her hair, the black veil pinned to the back of her braids drifting like smoke. “Alright. Rule One. The Forgemaster must complete all work on time, unless he can evidence exceptional circumstances or that the order was too large for the period given.”

Hector nodded, turned back to the desk and wrote it down.

“Rule Two.” she continued. “The Forgemaster must complete all work to his highest standard. Night creatures must be loyal to the Quartet, biddable, effective hunters and killers, and durable.”

Hector nodded again and wrote again. The scratch of the quill was smoother this time, the letters flowing in refined rows.

“Rule Three. The Forgemaster must not share any details of plans, discussions, or the castle with any third party without expressed instruction from the Quartet, nor must he conspire to bring harm to the Quartet.”

He nodded, wrote, dipped the quill.

“Rule Four. The Forgemaster may go anywhere he likes in the castle properties at any time, but must not leave the confines of the grounds without written consent from two members of the Quartet. This is with the exception of the council chamber, which he may only enter escorted.”

Hector wet his lip, a soft smile lingering. His muscles relaxed. His breath came in deep, rhythmic, energising draughts. This felt better. 

“Rule Five. The Quartet are to provide the Forgemaster with room and board to his agreed grade, as well as a monthly wage to be set down in a separate contract and revisited annually, based on circumstance and performance. They must also allow every Sunday as a day of rest and provide all necessary materials for his work.”

Hector halted. He turned to face her. “But… that’s a rule for you,” he said uncertainly.

Lenore’s slender fingers drummed on her knee. “Of course it is. How many times do I have to say it, Hector? This is an exchange. You should expect us to keep to standards too.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t let the ink drip.”

He spun dutifully back to the pot and tapped the nib clean.

Lenore picked up her decisive flow again. “Rule Six. If the Forgemaster fails to complete work to the required schedule and standard, or otherwise acts to jeopardise the Quartet’s operation, he will be punished by…” She paused. Her voice softened. “What do you think?”

Hector turned again.

“Or rather,” the corner of her mouth flicked up, “what can you take?”

Hector blushed. He chuckled warmly. “A lot, if my journey here is anything to go by.”

Lenore raised an eyebrow in amused reprimand. “Let’s do this by our standards, not grumpy Carmilla’s.”

He smiled, then sobered and looked at the ink splotches on his hand. He thought of Isaac. He flexed his back. “Flogging,” he said quietly.

Lenore’s face flickered. He looked up and met her eye sincerely, nervously, wondering if she would allow it. His skin tingled. She searched his face for a long moment.

She inclined her head. “He will be punished by flogging.” She held up a hand. “ _ But _ he will never be flogged to the point of causing permanent physical or mental harm, and if he has been flogged within 48 hours, punishment will be put on hold until his skin is sufficiently healed. Quartet Member Lenore reserves the right to substitute flogging for sleeping on the floor, undertaking chores, or having a safe number of meals withheld.” Her voice raised a little and hardened like aging oak. “No harm is to be allowed to the Forgemaster outside of these parameters.”

Hector felt like he was being wrapped in fleece. Her face was stern, but comforting. The noise in his head was fading further and further away. His mouth twitched. He nodded and wrote out the rule.

“Rule Seven." Lenore's voice lightened again. "If the Quartet fail to sufficiently support the material needs and health of the Forgemaster, he may be compensated with extra pay or rest time.”

Hector recorded this in amazement.

Lenore fell quiet. 

He turned, his chair creaking, and looked at her expectantly. She had crossed her legs and interlaced her fingers, hooked on her raised knee. One dainty, booted foot poked out from under the hem of her dress and bounced, as if she was tapping it along to music.

“What are you thinking now?” Hector asked, enjoying the ease with which the question rolled out of him.

“I’m thinking that that covers your employment fairly well. But there are…” She looked into his eyes. “Other matters.”

Hector’s steadied heart flipped and began to beat hastily again. Behind her, the embroidered hounds bounded through the silver forest. “Other matters?”

She levelled her gaze, a red, kinked lock of hair dropping over one eye. “Yes, Hector. Other matters. Do you feel comfortable discussing those?”

Hector’s thudding heartbeat echoed in his cock. He was barraged too suddenly to block them with images of last night in the cell. Her face contorted in pleasure. Her thighs rising around his face. Her fingers sliding over his skin. His core tightened. 

“I can discuss it,” he husked.

“Good,” she said silkily. “It’s important.”

Their eyes met, connected by an invisible, quivering wire pulsing with electrical current. Hector’s chest rose under his loose shirt. Lenore shifted a little in her seat, he saw her thigh move under her skirt.

“Rule Eight.” Lenore spoke slowly, the smooth slowness of a cobra sliding through sand. “The Forgemaster is not to touch any member, servant or guest of the Quartet without the expressed consent of Quartet Member Lenore.”

Hector stroked his thumb over the tickling feather of the quill, then wrote it down.

“No member, servant or guest of the Quartet is to touch the Forgemaster without the expressed consent of Quartet Member Lenore, which will be communicated to the Forgemaster by her alone.”

Hector’s mouth went dry. The furrows over his hip bones tingled. He kept writing, the quill moving a little quicker.

“Rule Nine. Only the Forgemaster and Quartet Member Lenore are permitted entry into the Forgemaster’s private rooms.”

The sound of the nib on the paper was like fingertips on flesh.

“Rule Ten. Mistress Lenore may touch the Pet and enter his chambers without expressed consent, but must desist if he uses the word ‘Sunrise.’”

“Sunrise.” He tasted it, moved it over his tongue. It was sweet. An ache blossomed between his thighs.

There was a soft hiss of fabric behind him. He turned cautiously and saw Lenore had slipped sideways to recline on the bed, her legs curled up and her head propped on her palm. Her cloak folded back and let the shadows of the canopy paint her figure and face in stark detail. She smiled her clever smile, the one that always looked on the verge of telling him a delicious secret. All the calm fled his body. His breath caught. He tried to speak, wheezed, grumbled, and stammered, “What else?”

Lenore’s eyes wandered leisurely over the bed canopy, her free hand idly plucking the embroidered pattern on the green bedspread, like she was lying romantically in a meadow. “Rule Eleven.” She brought her eyes back to him, glimmering in the pocket of darkness. “When the Pet touches Mistress Lenore, she may instruct him as to how. He must follow her instructions.”

Hector found his gaze sloping down her body. He bit his tongue and turned quickly to write. 

She spoke again before he could finish, the rules running into each other with the speeding of his pulse. “Rule Twelve. The Pet must prioritise Mistress Lenore’s pleasure over his own. It must be his primary concern in all their encounters.”

How long had she been saying Pet and Mistress? Had she always been saying it? He glanced at earlier rules to check, but her voice moved his hand too fast to look properly. The quill danced on the paper.

“Rule Thirteen. The Pet may touch himself at his discretion, but he must think of Mistress Lenore at the point of climax.”

The quill pressed into the page and left a scar under the ink.

“Mistress Lenore may withdraw his right to touch himself for defined periods of time.”

Hector’s breathing was becoming acutely audible, his shoulders trembling. When had they strayed this far? How had he allowed himself to talk about this? Should he stop? Sunrise. He could say it. Sunrise. He didn’t want to. He half turned his face to indicate he was ready for the next rule.

Another hiss of fabric, as she teased the silk with her fingertips. “Rule Fourteen. The Pet must bring Mistress Lenore to whatever level of pleasure she chooses, whenever summoned and in the manner directed, without question. He is to perform this duty with the passion to which he caters to his own desires. Her pleasure is to be his nourishment.”

His blood crowded with heat. Her wanting gasps. Her stinging bite on his lip. The tight embrace of her cunt on his cock. The quill plunged into the ink and withdrew dripping wet.

“Rule Fifteen. During encounters, the Pet may only climax when instructed by Mistress Lenore. Doing so before, or failing to do so on command, will result in punishment.”

Hector coughed over a moan. His cock pulsed. There was a fizzing in the pit of his stomach. His writing was becoming spidery, shaky.

“Rule Sixteen. Mistress Lenore will care for the bodily needs and wants of the Pet. He may make requests of her at any time. She may require him to beg or perform a task as payment.”

The final letter ended with a splatter of ink, as Hector’s fingers grew too eager. His cock pushed against his britches.

A smooth touch glided over his shoulders.

The nib broke.

Ink burst and glistened on the dark, shining surface of the desk. Hector gasped and hurriedly swept the pages out of the way of the droplets. Lenore reached over from behind his chair and covered his hand with hers. When had she moved? He hadn’t heard her leave the bed. Her hand was steady and gentle. Her hair swished forward and tickled his neck, dousing him in her light, sweet perfume.

“Are you happy with these rules, Hector?” Her lilting voice trickled through him.

“Yes,” he breathed.

“Give me more than that,” she commanded in a low, lulling voice. “How do they make you feel?”

He sank deeper into his chair, her hair falling around him as she stood over his back, as if he was tumbling through autumn leaves. “Safe,” he whispered. “Protected.”

“Good.” She teased the veins on the back of his ink-stained hand and massaged his shoulder. “Anything else?”

Hector’s vision blurred in the haze of auburn. “I want to obey them. The idea of obeying them makes me feel…” He searched for the word, tongue rolling behind his teeth. “Excited.”

“What sort of excited?” Her whisper permeated his being. She tenderly lifted his hand from the desk and placed it over the mound in his britches.

A flurry of pleasure went through him. “Hard,” he gasped. “Hot.”

She pressed his hand lightly.

He bucked and moaned. “Burning hot.”

“Mmmm…” She bent right to his ear and hummed. Her breath tickled him and made him squirm under her firm grasp on his shoulder. “Show me.”

Hector scrabbled to obey. He unlaced his britches with flashing fingers and released his swollen cock, dark, sumptuous red and glistening at the tip. 

Lenore’s lips grazed the shell of his ear, as she curled his hand around the shaft. “Keep talking to me, Pet.”

She guided his hand in a long, slow stroke up the length of his cock, then released his hand. He kept up the stroke, pleasure pouring through his body. 

“I can’t decide whether I should want you, Lenore,” he whispered into the auburn fog. “I do. I want you so devastatingly. But it’s madness. At least…” He broke to groan with pleasure and suck her scent. “At least if it’s in the rules, there’s some sense to it.”

She chuckled sweetly. Her fingertips wandered around his shoulders, then his throat. 

His voice buzzed against her touch. “I like that only you can touch me. I like being your privilege. Everything feels so different with you.”

He kneaded his cock, gripping harder, palming the tip, the pounds of pleasure stopping his heart. Her fingers around his throat whited out his vision. He went wonderfully dizzy. He took a deep draught of her perfume and craned his neck around to nuzzle into the hollow of her collar, lips skimming her smooth skin and tingling against her silver necklace. She slipped her fingers down over his jutting Adam’s apple, then his collarbone, then under his shirt. They skated over his chest and rested on his nipples, like bees on flowers.

“Oh God…” Hector muttered. 

“Say more for me, Pet,” she cooed. 

Her fingers began to circle on his nipples, pausing to softly pinch and twist them, then circle again. Pleasure whirled over his flesh. He began to pump his cock in earnest, the sensation coursing in his body.

“Last night, feeling you want me,” he moaned. “It was incredible. Every word of these rules that hints that you want me is… Oh…” The pleasure mounted and dispersed his thoughts. 

“I do want you, Hector.” She said it easily and plainly, with a strum of his nipples that sent shockwaves through him. “You’re very easy to want.”

He whimpered, twisting to press his face into the rise of her breasts. He caught the fabric of her dress in his teeth, the weave teasing his lips. “Please want me.” His voice muffled around his bite on her dress. He rotated his grip on his cock, stirring the pleasure hotter. “If I’m going to make this terrible, beautiful mistake, please want me and make it all worthwhile.”

She bent and kissed the top of his head. She splayed her fingers and scored his chest. He shuddered. She pinched his nipples harder. “Don’t call it a mistake, Pet.”

He grunted needily and crushed his lips to her breast.

“Stroke yourself faster.”

He obeyed. His cock went so rigid that the ache seized his legs. His breath came short, his chest quivering and pushing into her touch. He writhed in the chair, her hair clouding around his face. She began to rub his nipples, like she was striking up a flame. The harsh sensation zipped about his body and drove him wild. He rubbed his face into her softness, tangling his hair, grinding his teeth, his mouth watering around the clenched cloth. He pumped himself full of pleasure, until he was brimming with it, until he was moaning roughly into her body with the sound of an ox being driven. 

“You said…” he panted thickly. “You said I couldn’t come until you let me.”

She tweaked his nipples and rolled them like she was pipping olives. “That’s right.”

He groaned helplessly.

She kissed the top of his head again. “I also said you could make a request.”

“Can I come?” he coughed.

He could feel her smile at his centre, even without being able to see it, as she purred, “I also said I could require you to beg.”

Hector moaned sonorously against her, his lips grazing her dress as his mouth dropped open for a gush of pleas. “Oh God, please, please. Please, Lenore, please. Please, Mistress, let me come.”

She hummed and massaged around his chest, the sensation of butter melting on his skin clashing with the hard jabs of need in his cock and the ache in his knuckles and wrist.

“Please, I’m begging you. It’s been so many hours of wanting to come again, surrounded by your scent.”

She stroked her hands back up to his throat, then cradled his head against her, petting his hair and teasing along the line of his jaw. 

“Please, Lenore, please. Let me show you how much pleasure it gives me just to be this close to you.”

She ran her thumb over his lip. “Come for me, Pet.”

Hector’s hand dashed on his cock. His pleasure spiked and rocketed around his body, like a firework. His spine arched, his hips bucked. He moaned so loud it grated his throat. Cascades crashed through him, relief and rush and a tentative pride that he’d followed the rules first time breaking over him and drenching him in warmth. A pearly glisten erupted from his cock and drizzled over the ink stains on his hand, white and black like salt and pepper. Lenore held him tight, as he shook and twitched, shielding him in her body and rocking him sweetly. The motion carried him carefully back to earth. He turned his face and buried it in the hand cupping his jaw. He kissed her palm fervently, laying his clean hand over hers and clasping it tight.

She hushed his harried breathing and ducked down to his ear, flicking the lobe with the point of her tongue. “Good Boy.”

Hector shuddered. An aftershock throbbed through him. 

She held him until his body fell still. 

She kissed his cheek.

She pulled from him and slipped from the room, before he could think to move. 

He was left in the echo of pleasure and pride and shame, his body gradually slowing and cooling. He had something solid now, real security. He could hardly believe it. But it had also made him succumb so easily. Too easily. Too trustingly. Too unguardedly. The spray began to cake on his hand, his cock lying limp and pink in the ruins of his britches. He touched his cheek where she’d kissed him. He wilted into the sound of his ragged, bewildered panting.

“So…” Isaac’s dry, unimpressed voice sounded in the back of his mind. “That went well.”


	3. Thwarted Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lenore prepares for Chō's arrival, but on the night she is due to arrive, Lenore takes a break from work to get closer to Hector.
> 
> Song: [Ibelin, Harry Gregson-Williams (Kingdom of Heaven OST)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EovECGxcgwE&list=PLfXrKwcZ25PbPJ79x3CYGpIQ-IBrukuPb&index=26)

The smell of paper suited Hector, Lenore thought as she stretched out on her bed and twirled a lock of her hair dreamily around her finger. He was simple, like paper. But also infinitely complex, like paper. An invisible weave of thousands of strands into a single, plain body. An open opportunity to inscribe a whole new chapter for herself. 

She took a deep, refreshing breath of the clean, perfumed air of her chambers, and let it out in a long sigh. So much hung in the balance, so much on the edge of a knife. Hector wasn’t truly hers yet, not in his heart. She hadn’t fully proved herself to her sisters. The scheme was a vulnerable newborn, and Carmilla was a difficult mother. The rest of them were to be midwives for this dawning order Carmilla was birthing, and Lenore felt the responsibility more keenly than they knew. Morana had grown up with wealth, a political figure since before she could walk. Striga was might incarnate, followers flocking to her like wolves to an alpha. Carmilla had won her place with action and grit and rage. Lenore was different. Obscure and small and pawned between powers all her life, she had waited and watched and learned and slowly, very slowly, dismantled her cage with patience and guile. A single wrong step in all those years could have ruined her irrevocably. And now, it was all finally within her grasp. A family that respected and cherished her. An empire that bowed to her. A rich, stable, liberated life in a fairytale castle. A lover who adored her without question, without condition, who chose her over himself and his ego, and would do so forever. A lover she truly wanted, who made her feel like herself. No more powerful, empty brutes that she had to please for her position. Someone who gave her power, who deferred to her. No more “My Little Lenore”. It was all so nearly hers. Her fingers itched to take it. She just needed to make a few more correct moves.

A true sadist. That’s what Morana had said. That was the next task. And she’d said it fit Lenore because of what she’d done to Hector. She rolled onto her front and gazed blindly down at her pillow. She unpinned her veil and dropped it lazily beside her. She dragged her fountain of red hair over one shoulder and began to twist it in her hands.

A true sadist.

Carmilla had beaten him, imprisoned him, frozen him. How was that not enough?

_ “All I’ve ever wanted was for someone to be kind, and I thought I’d finally found that, and then…” _

Her hands halted. That was what Morana meant. The more blows Carmilla rained down on Hector, the more numb he became. It wasn’t until Lenore had made him feel again that he could be truly wounded. It wasn’t until she’d restored his personhood that he could be truly humiliated. The lingering weight on her heart pressed harder. Goosebumps puckered her flesh in a sudden cold. She blew out harshly through her nose and rubbed her arms. 

_ You healed him once, you’ll do it again. Feel good. If even Morana thinks you broke him beyond repair, then it worked. He’s yours and no one knows. No one can say you’re weak and romantic and sentimental. You’re the evil genius that broke Dracula’s forgemaster. And meanwhile, love can live in the shadows, one of those plants that grows in the dark. Let yourself have this, have something just for yourself. _

She’d give him time. Their new rules may have given her a range of pleasing rights, but she’d let them percolate before acting on them again. Hector was a peculiar mix of methodical and impulsive, it made it difficult to judge exactly how long any new idea needed for it to take. He could read a book on vampire philosophy and thoroughly dissect and adopt it in a matter of hours. Or he could be given a simple phrase and still be tying himself in knots over it days later. She’d let him think and give himself up to her as he was able, piece by piece, shard by shard. She’d rebuild him once she had them all. 

For now, it could do her good to be without the distraction. An idea was kernelling in her bubbling cauldron of a brain, an idea for welcoming Chō that might just secure their next phase.

She reached into her bedside drawer and withdrew a pencil and a sheet of paper, the same smooth, tan colour as Hector’s skin. She smiled and ran her fingers over it, pressing it to the bedsheet. Then she flicked up the pencil and wrote two words in a flourishing hand.

_ Thwarted desire. _

*

For three days, the castle swarmed with activity. Lenore was in her element, directing servants like an orchestra, the music of her scheming echoing through the vaulting halls. Her sisters watched with intrigued amusement, Morana and Striga even allowing themselves to be delegated to. Carmilla absolutely would not allow herself to be delegated to, but she at least stayed out of the way and kept snide comments to a minimum, which usually meant she was on board. Hector focused on the construction of his workshop, ordering equipment and cleaning out the old complex of cellars he was to take over. Preparing himself for work allowed him to pretend it was the only reason for feeling oddly comfortable with staying here.

The night came when Chō was due to arrive. Lenore was awake and spritely the moment the sun dipped behind the mountains. She swept and twirled through the castle, giving strict instructions, neatening decorations, running white handkerchiefs along surfaces to check for dust. Her stomach kept fluttering and she burst sporadically into light humming or wringing her hands, as the excitement pranced around her body, like a troop of fauns. She played her plans over and over in her head, until they almost started to feel like memories. Coloured cloth and sparkling jewels and exuberant flowers and sweet, steaming dishes crowded her senses. 

She headed out into the courtyard to receive a delivery, a dusting of snow making the air crisp and pure, pecking her cheeks. A large wagon trundled over the cobbles, creaking under the weight of a series of wrapped bundles packed vertically side by side. The grey, hefty carthorses snorted huge clouds of mist around their nostrils, flanks pumping from the exertion up the mountain. Lenore fussed their manes and kissed their noses, breathing the gamey taste of their thumping blood, then called for oats and carrots and buckets of water. She directed the traders unpacking the wagon, then left them to one of the guards to supervise, giving the horses a final coddle before walking away. 

She took a relaxing breath of the icy air. She’d checked her list a dozen times, everything was in order. She just needed to trust herself. She breathed again.

A movement caught her eye. She glanced over to a corner of the castle courtyard, where she saw another trader, in a long, green cloak, talking with Hector. Hector stood a head taller than the trader, even with his shoulders hunched against the cold. He was still wandering about in just a shirt, the tailor having provided him with a few basics and only delivered his full wardrobe to Lenore for approval that early evening. Her keen eyes sneaked around his body. The cold had licked his nipples to prick the underside of his shirt. A sprinkling of snow laced his wavy hair and pinched his cheeks bright, sparkles in his eyes. Hector and the trader shook hands. The trader turned, his cloak swirling about him, and trudged off to the main gate. Hector rubbed his arms and turned quickly on his heel to go inside, his step light, like a cat on wet stone. She smiled after him. Then her feet moved for her. She tripped over to him, catching him up, as he was swallowed by the huge, grand door. 

“Hector!” she called, as they stepped into the shelter of the entrance hall. 

Regimented suits of armour gleamed in the bright lights that picked out the glisten on Hector’s hair. He started and turned. When he saw her, his face instantly softened, then flickered. She pursed her lips, but brushed off the sting of his hesitation, sweeping to walk alongside him

“How’s the workshop coming?” she asked brightly. “I assume you were speaking to a supplier just now?”

Hector nodded, answering politely. “Of coal. It’s good, I think. It’s the first time I’ve set up a space of this scale, I’m not sure if I’m doing it right.”

“You’re the forgemaster,” Lenore said encouragingly. “Whatever feels best for you is right.”

Hector nodded. They kept walking through the entrance hall and into the complex of alcoves and corridors in the labyrinthine house. The shadows rippled over Hector, as if he was walking underwater. Their gaits synchronised instinctively, Lenore almost feeling the rhythmic tug of the lead in her hand. She rubbed her palm with her thumb.

“So, Chō arrives tonight?” Hector inquired.

Lenore covered a look of pleasant surprise, he didn’t normally initiate conversation. She’d been trying to pull their pace slower, so he wouldn’t vanish off towards the cellars too soon. She smoothed her skirt. “Yes. It’s going to be quite the event, if I pull it off.”

“You will,” Hector murmured.

She looked at him.

He looked at her. His electric blue eyes were rimmed with a misty, winter-dawn grey. He was regarding her softly, his lips the slightest bit puckered. 

She smiled. “That’s kind of you to say, Pet. Thank you.”

He half-smiled at his shoes. He glanced back at her, still watching him with wide eyes. He frowned, as if he was reading the fine print in a text book. “You’re nervous.”

Lenore perked up and shot her fidgeting hands resolutely to her sides. “I am not.”

He bent a little to examine her face, peering through the shifting light. “You are.”

She threw him a deriding look.

He frowned deeper and halted. His fingertips brushed her sleeve. She stopped in her tracks, a ripple of heat going up her arm. They were close together in a low, stone archway, engraved with the writhing bodies of beasts twisted together in hypnotic interlace. Hector had to stoop a little to fit, the bow of his body making his shirt billow forward and revealing the smooth, dusky plain of his chest. Lenore eyed it, breathing his scent of salt and berries and iron, over the current of his sweet blood. 

“Can I help?” he asked delicately.

Lenore looked sharply into his sincere face. “You want to help me?”

Hector hesitated, his shoulders drawing up. Then he pushed them down and spoke so quietly she had to read his pretty lips. “Yes.”

She leaned closer to his body, tucking into his shape the way she would position herself under a parasol. She took her gaze away from his piercing eyes, settling it on the inkwell of shadow in his collarbone. “The truth is, there’s a lot riding on tonight. I have it all in hand, completely under control, of course.”

“Of course,” he let out a breathy, shy laugh, his eyes twinkling.

Her face warmed. She grinned. She recovered herself. “It’s just, having something under control doesn’t make it utterly predictable.”

His gaze was penetrating in its chemical flame brightness, but it was also boyish and vulnerable. He was looking at her like a puppy who’s deciding whether to be frightened of a wolf. His eyes fell slowly down to the floor between them. “I don’t think you need things to be predictable. I think you think on your feet so well that it’s probably almost better to leave some things in the air for you to catch in some last moment, impressive way.” He pressed his lips together, like he’d said too much, and brought his eyes tentatively back to hers.

Lenore’s flesh ached. All the fractious ambition of the past three days suddenly barrelled through her insides, followed by a painful rush of want to throw herself into his arms, to have his complete belief in her abilities hold her up for one relieving moment. But in the sudden crush of feeling, she couldn’t face him pulling away. She settled for reaching out and laying her hand over his heart, the heat from his mortal body and the thrum of his pulse like a soothing, lavender oil in her senses. As she touched him, his heart thumped hard and beat faster. She smiled knowingly at him, eyes glinting in the dark, her thumb stroking back and forth. Hector let out a trembling breath that echoed off the stone. His chest rose into her hand, the warmth pooling in her abdomen. He cautiously raised his hand and hovered it over hers. 

She nodded. 

He folded his hand over hers and pressed it ever so slightly.

She grinned. She’d been planning to wait until tomorrow to do this, but there were still some hours to prepare, she could treat herself. And her pet. She rotated her hand, interlaced their fingers, and pulled Hector back into walking, leading him behind her and beaming at the familiar sound of their footsteps in time. “Come on, I have something for you.”

“For me?” Hector asked, following her effortlessly, his hand warm in hers and wrapping her fingers tight.

“Yes, silly, sound less surprised.” She flashed him a mocking smile over her shoulder and laughed, as he looked bashful.

She led him up the winding, ornate staircase and to her chambers, through her blue silk bedroom, smiling to herself at the skip in his pulse against her hand when they passed her bed, and into her private sitting room. It was a compact, cosy space, with a desk, a couch upholstered in the same duck egg silk of her bed, and a coffee table, upon which was a large hamper. The rich, teal walls were hung with framed images of animals, inked and gilded and surrounded by curling text - pages from a bestiary. There was a matchbox on the desk. Lenore noticed Hector peer at it in sweetened surprise, seeing the fat spider with its crooked leg, squatting on a bed of cotton. 

“That’s Guillaume,” she said lightly.

Hector smiled. “Guillaume the spider.”

“Yes.”

“He looks comfortable.”

“I think too much so,” she chuckled. “Once he’s mended, he won’t want to give up his luxury accommodation.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Hector muttered.

Lenore smirked at him and squeezed his hand. She pulled away and gestured invitingly to the hamper on the coffee table. 

Hector raised his eyebrows.

“Open it!” She flapped her hand at him.

Hector looked deeply suspicious. He inched to the hamper, took the corner between finger and thumb, and lifted the lid. His eyes widened. Inside was a pile of neatly folded, extremely fine, tailored garments.

“It’s your wardrobe!” Lenore exclaimed with a clap of her hands. “Giovanni delivered it this evening.”

She beamed at Hector’s awed expression, as he stretched out trembling fingers and ran them over the top garment, so carefully it was as if he was worried he might tear the silk. His pale eyes reflected the crimson that crowned the pile. His lips parted and quivered.

“Well?” she prompted gingerly. 

“I’ve never worn things like this before,” he murmured. “I grew up in flax and leather. Dracula gave me a uniform, but this…” He very slowly flattened his palm and spread his hand over the fabric, like he was sinking into water. 

A bubble of pleasure popped in Lenore’s belly. “Well, it’s all yours. Deck yourself out. Take it dancing. Cover it in coal dust. Rip it to shreds. Actually don’t, Giovanni would poison us both.” She laughed softly.

Hector echoed her mirth, warming her. He was still gazing into the hamper.

She felt liquid, giving him gifts was such a joy. He took so much interest and pleasure in simple things. It was so deliciously easy to make him happy. And happiness suited him. 

“Do you want to try them on?” she asked, threading a tempting lilt into her voice and mentally crossing her fingers.

Hector looked at her shyly. “Don’t you have to work?”

She shrugged. “Tonight’s on my schedule.” She threw off her cloak, dropped down onto her couch, drew her legs up under her, and made a comedic show of batting her eyes at him. “Come on, I want to see.”

Hector blushed, the lovely colour of braised caramel. He bit his lip. And nodded. “Should I change behind a screen or…”

She cocked an eyebrow pointedly.

“Or not. I can just not.”

She crinkled her nose playfully. His blush darkened. 

He hooked the back of his collar and pulled his shirt over his head, the ruddy clay colour of his skin making Lenore’s hands prickle and feel oddly empty. He dropped his shirt, his hair mussed, the sleepy shadows of the close room cuddling up to the contours of his form. He was muscular from the forge, but still soft. She remembered the pleasant give of his flesh, like springy, stripped yew. 

“Stop it,” Hector grumbled with a rueful smile.

Lenore blinked innocently. “Stop what?”

“Staring.”

“I am not staring,” she chuckled.

“You are staring,” he insisted, still smiling. “You’re making me…”

She touched the corner of her mouth. “Hot?”

“Nervous,” he said firmly.

“Alright,” she conceded. “What if I only half stare?” She raised her hands over her face and peeked through the gaps in her fingers.

Hector gave her a dry look.

“I notice for someone who doesn’t like me looking at you, you’re taking an awfully long time to cover yourself,” Lenore teased, muffled in her palms.

Hector narrowed his eyes and caught up the first garment in the hamper. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” he muttered. “That’s why I’m nervous.”

Lenore smiled, bubbles in her belly again, cherry eyes sparkling in the shade from her hands.

Hector slid a crimson, silk tunic over his arms and shrugged it into place, carefully doing the fastenings. It was cut close to his figure, the deep red warming his skin tone further and making his blue eyes stand out stark. Lenore perused him behind her fingers. He looked down at himself, tugging the hem straight. 

He looked up. “What do you think?”

Lenore shrugged. “I’m barely even looking.”

Hector let out a low, surrendering laugh. “Fine, take your hands down.”

She revealed her face and her wide, mocking smile. Her smile turned sweet and approving. “Extremely handsome.”

Hector bunched his shoulders. “Really?”

“Really.”

His blush conquered another swathe of his face. He nodded and rubbed his wrist and carefully removed the tunic. He lifted up a turquoise one next. “I realise a lot of these I could actually have tried on over the shirt.”

Lenore waved her hand. “Don’t worry about that.”

Hector shot her a small grin. He pulled on the turquoise tunic. It washed over his skin, like the Aegean sea on a beach. His eyes sparkled. His hair floated over his shoulders, like clouds gathering on the water. Lenore leaned her cheek on her hand and beamed. He raised his eyebrows questioningly. She nodded approval. He nodded in return and moved for the next garment. 

Everything he tried on, he looked to Lenore for her opinion. It took her a little while to fully notice that he hadn’t even asked for a mirror. He tucked himself into an outfit, checked it fit, asked if she liked it, smiled that she did, moved on. He didn’t seem to have decided to do that, it just happened naturally. He looked for her approval without thinking. It was instinctive for him. However she’d charmed him in his cells, she hadn’t done that. Her eyes twinkled. 

No matter how much encouragement she gave him, Hector could not be made to show off. She tried suggesting poses, making him run his hand through his hair to mound his bicep, or leave buttons undone at the collar, but he always obeyed quickly, then remedied himself back into his cool shyness. But she could make him smile. A quip, a compliment, a theatrical fanning herself with her hand, and his face would break into humour and his voice would drop teasing, rolling through her deliciously. 

He burrowed his way to the part of the hamper containing britches, as well as more for his top. He swallowed. She offered to hide her eyes, but he shook his head. He may have been on the other side of the coffee table, but the intimacy between them was palpable, as he peeled away the clothes on his lower half and stood naked before her. She bit her lip, a flame igniting between her legs. A deep, terracotta stripe spread over his cheeks and nose and stained his chest, as he let her take him in. He watched her like a fawn watches a fox. 

“You really are attractive, Hector,” Lenore said wistfully. 

He pressed his lips together and tore his eyes away. He began a slow cycle of dressing and undressing, the coloured fabrics whispering over his skin, enfolding him and wilting off him, his muscles rising under his skin with his motions, the light tumbling over him and caressing his lean, graceful body. His cock swelled a little. She sucked her tongue. 

“I don’t suppose you’re going to pretend you haven’t noticed that,” Hector said wryly, as he reached the bottom of the hamper and stepped back into his britches.

“Noticed what?” Lenore asked, her canine sneaking over her lip.

Hector flashed his startling eyes at her. She smirked. He reached out for his bundled shirt.

“Leave it off,” she said quickly.

He glanced at her with surprising confidence. He dropped his hand, the corner of his mouth twitching. His hair fell forward, shadowing his face, wisps of it winding together. She thought about tangling her fingers in it. 

She shifted to sit up straight and patted the spot on the couch beside her. He rubbed his elbow. He hung back a moment, then came and joined her, moving like a starling towards a girl with a palm full of seeds. Lenore watched him settle. He hovered on the edge of the seat, spine as straight as a rod. She gave him a goading smile. He shifted an inch backwards onto the cushion. 

She grinned, hopped up, and scurried into her bedroom. His eyes stayed on her, as she left and returned swiftly, holding a black ribbon and a fine-toothed comb. She tucked herself beside him again, letting the warmth from his body bathe her, eying the fine definition of his abs.

“Turn around,” she instructed softly.

He obeyed, putting his strong, lean back to her, his hair brushing his smooth shoulders. His arms sealed to his sides, he was holding himself tensely. She raised the comb, scooped his hair with her free hand, and drew the comb through the strands in a slow, gentle stroke. It unspooled a sigh from Hector, his shoulders lowering. She felt a glimmer in her chest. She gathered up his thick, wiry hair and drew the comb through it again, the knots snicking apart under her fluid motions. 

“Why are you doing this?” Hector asked in a single, humming breath.

“Because it’s a mess,” she said with a chuckle. “I want to see what you look like with it off your face.”

She teased the teeth into his scalp and dragged the comb lightly through the roots of his hair, pulling it back. Hector let out a gruff, stifled moan, his shoulders rolling. 

Lenore licked her lip. “Does it feel nice?”

Another stroke, another sigh. He nodded. He dropped his head back and rolled his shoulders again, the movement oozing down the muscles in his back, like his flesh was turning to syrup. Lenore took a deep breath of his earthy, mouth-watering scent. She slid closer to his back. She tenderly pushed his head straight again, and kept on teasing his hair, the sensation wriggling up her fingers. They sat for a long moment in a comfortable quiet, cradled by the shush and thwip of the comb.

“It smells good in here,” Hector mumbled suddenly.

Lenore’s ears pricked. She smiled. “Oh?”

“Mmm.” Hector took a slow breath that moved through his whole bare torso. “Flowers and fresh air and coffee and the hearth. And you.”

Lenore rubbed her tingling lips together.

“I like your scent.” He said it so quietly someone without supernatural hearing would have missed it. 

Lenore watched the back of his head carefully. She so wanted to read his face. She trailed her fingers over his neck, as she gathered his hair up again. She quivered with pleasure, as he unthinkingly opened his throat out for her touch, his pulse thrumming under her fingertips.

“So,” she said caressingly, with the next lingering stroke, “do you like your new clothes?”

“I do.” A little more levity leaked into his deep, contemplative voice. “It’s funny, it’s almost like a bridal trousseau.”

Lenore tugged out the last of the tangle and put the comb on the table. She ran her fingertips along his scalp, tickling with the crinkles in the strands. She scooped the top half of his hair behind him and bound it with the ribbon. “I suppose it is.” She peeked around his shoulder to the braided black and red ring on his finger. The corner of her mouth twisted. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

He turned his hand in his lap and ran his thumb over the ring. Her breath paused. Was it a regretful gesture? Or was it connected to the trousseau? She shook her head and snapped the neat, black bow in his half-ponytail tight. She dropped her hands. “All done. There’s a mirror on the wall, if you just stretch a bit.”

Hector looked ahead of him and saw the oval, silver framed mirror on the wall. He stretched up like a meerkat, his face bobbed into the glass. Lenore slipped her fingernail between her teeth and smiled around it, as she watched him stare at himself, his face unveiled, his sharp jaw and cheekbones juxtaposing with the soft, sullen pucker of his lips and the lively glimmer of his eyes under fine brows. He blinked and sank back down.

“It looks…” he began awkwardly.

“Pretty,” Lenore finished for him. 

He touched his cheek, still facing away from her. With the curtain of his hair drawn back, the elegant curve of his long neck into his broad shoulders glimmered in the lamp light. Lenore ducked forward and placed a gentle kiss on his upper back. He made a strained sound in his throat. His shoulders folded back so the blades jutted. His head dropped to the side, exposing his neck. Lenore’s abdomen fluttered. She kissed closer to his neck.

“Hector?” she whispered.

He grunted.

“Do you want to come to the party tonight?”

He rocked backwards, touching his body to hers, letting her take his weight and washing her hot. “Would you like me to go?”

She slipped her hands to his waist and strummed his tactile abs, enjoying how his heavy lean against her summoned her strength. “Honestly, yes, I would.” She kissed the base of his neck. “You’re a calming presence.”

He laughed under his breath, rubbing his thigh with the ringed hand. “I’m not sure how.”

She ran the tip of her nose down his neck, making him shudder against her, and kissed the base again. “I’m going to have to perform to everyone all night. It will be nice having someone there who doesn’t require that of me. Who just…” Another kiss, resting her lips on his skin to speak against it. “...enjoys being around me.”

Hector rolled his head and rested his temple to hers, his back settling deeper against her torso. “Is that why I’m a pet?” he asked in a low, drowsy voice. “Because that’s why I like animals.”

She kissed his cheek, her lips tingling more. “That’s exactly it.”

He smiled softly. She moved to kiss his cheek again. 

He turned his face and caught her lips. 

Lenore’s body flooded with heat, the heat of his skin, the heat of his want, the heat of the snapping tension between them. Her slow, barely beating heart somersaulted. She returned his kiss with a burst of ferocity, lassoing his tongue with hers and pressing her mouth to his with a low, bestial snarl. Hector gasped and melted against her, letting her mould his lips, his eyes fluttering closed and his brow creasing. She filled with relief at how he gave way to her, how he crumbled like pastry mix when she kissed him. But he was chasing too. He moved suddenly, twisting in his seat and wriggling to sit straight forward on the couch, pawing at her hips. Lenore giggled and moved with him, the two of them synchronising like they did while walking. She eased him against the back of the couch and slid swiftly to straddle him, their lips never breaking apart, as they writhed to reposition themselves.

She settled across his lap. Hector moaned into her mouth and gathered her into his arms, scooping her against his bare torso and pressing her to his body. Lenore gasped, bit his lip, and sucked hard, every inch of her skin prickling fiercely with longing. It had only been four days since she’d tasted him, but it felt like years. She clasped his neck and pulled his mouth up to hers, the warm, strong, yearning wrap of his arms filling her with strength and need. The way his tongue moved on hers rushed her mind with memories of his flickering licks on her clit. She mewled and kissed him deeper, like she was drinking from a river.

“Oh…” he breathed against her lips, as she kissed around his face and nipped his chin. “Oh, God, Lenore, I’ve missed you.”

She nipped his jaw, then the end of his nose, then his lip, each soft bite sending a bolt through him that made him buck beneath her and strike her with pleasure. 

“And how do you think I’ve felt keeping my distance from you for this many days?” she teased. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't ask to kiss you."

"I'll let you off, if you keep going."

Hector groaned and kissed her feverishly. His mouth was hungry, but still tender, moving against hers worshipfully. He snaked between her thighs, his torso grinding on her and pricking her nipples. A lacing of sweat broke out on his skin, making her touch cling to him, as she ran her hands around his neck and chest and abs and shoulders, feeling all the exquisite details of his beautiful body. Her touch emboldened him, she heard his heartbeat grow stronger. 

He squeezed her in his arms, then brushed his hands over her waist and breasts and tugged the lacing of her dress loose. She smiled against his lips, lashing his tongue with hers, and helped him peel it down. The cloth slipped from her small shoulders and down to unveil the peach points of her nipples. They dragged against the sweat on Hector’s chest. Sensation wheeled through her. She dug her fingernails into his tough shoulders and cast her head backwards, the glow of the lamps gushing over her. Hector swore under his breath and tumbled forward. He ran his hands up her back, rippling her muscles, making her shiver and sink backwards into his supporting embrace. He ducked his head and fell helplessly to kissing her breasts. His eyes stayed closed, as if in prayer, as he pressed kisses like petals over her flesh. She kneaded his shoulders, her hair cascading down her back over his cradling hands. His lips brought her skin to life, sensation fizzing in her pores and making her core ache for him. She opened her mouth to tell him what she wanted, but he moved before she had to say. His mouth closed around one of her pip-hard nipples. He sucked long and luxuriantly, his tongue tracing maddening circles that drew high, breathless moans from her.

“Oh, Hector, yes…”

He unsealed from her with a slurping noise that made her giggle and kissed up her breast and over her heart, then her collar and to her neck. He pulled her forward to hug her tight, buried his face in her neck, and sucked again. Lenore felt her still blood whisk to where his mouth summoned it. She sighed and furled him in her arms and thighs and clung to him possessively. Of course she’d wanted him, of course she’d had to protect him, all this wild desire, all this sweetness, all this hope. Under his lifetime of sending violence over the land, all this innocence. He was like a new vampire, dealing out death with an alienated part of himself that he hadn’t yet learned to trust, that he kept divided from his need for love and closeness. If he brought those halves of himself together, let his cold logic meet his burning want, he could be something remarkable. She could help him become something remarkable. No more having his extraordinary talent siphoned off him, like he was a mined resource. All of Hector would be part of this new world. Her new world. Their new world.

His body worked like bellows in her clasp, he was fighting for breath, lost in the feel of his mouth on her skin. She began to rock her hips, smiling cunningly as he swelled against her clit. Pleasure pulsed through her, trickling down her body from where he ardently kissed her neck and shoulder and chest and ear, and welling in her clit, as they writhed against each other longingly. He clutched her, making her feel secure and adored. He kissed her body like he was making offerings. 

She clamped him between her thighs, tugged her skirts up and ground hard on his cock. He moaned hotly. She scratched his back. He moaned again. He snared her mouth, kissing her desperately, panting onto her tongue, bucking under her and making her slick with need.

They kissed and moaned and sighed and sucked and bit and he gripped her dress pooled about her hips and - 

“Sunrise.”

Lenore stopped, hit by a lurching feeling like an engine stalling in the pit of her stomach. 

She shook herself back to clarity. 

Hector was stock still beneath her, his knuckles white on her skirts, his head bowed with his forehead pressed to her shoulder. His eyes were screwed shut and he was breathing fast and purposefully. Cold stole through her flesh.

She stroked his arms soothingly. “Are you alright?”

He didn’t answer. He was trembling.

She brushed her fingers through his hair, bumping over the ribbon knot. “Hector, Pretty One, what’s wrong?”

“Sun… Sunrise,” he said again, his voice strained and breathless.

“Alright, that’s alright,” Lenore cooed. She carefully laid her hands over his fists on her skirts and eased them open. She slid out of his lap to sit beside him. He moved his hands to grip the edge of the couch, glaring at the floor, still taking harried breaths. Lenore’s insides clenched, but she kept her manner cooling. “That was good of you, my good boy, you said the word we agreed on, that’s very well done.” It was a cruel effort not to touch him while he looked so unhappy. But she had agreed. 

“I’m sorry,” he said at last through his teeth.

“Don’t apologise. That’s why we have the magic word.” She smiled reassuringly, but he wouldn’t look at her face. “Will you tell me what happened?”

“I just…” The words sieved through his teeth. “I just can’t.”

Lenore’s skin stung. She drew back a little, feeling clammy and brittle. She pulled her dress back up over her shoulders. 

There was a tremulous, congealing pause, rattling with the sounds of Hector’s breathing very slowly levelling out. When he was calmer again, he groaned and drooped and buried his face in his hands. His vertebrae ridged on his convex back. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled again.

She shook her head. “Stop saying that.”

He huffed out a very long, lead-heavy sigh. He rubbed his face and lowered his hands. “I should go.” He stood, picked up his shirt, and bundled it in his hands. He began to stride from the room.

Lenore felt like her chest was cracking. She balled her fists and kept her tone impassive. “Will you still come tonight?”

He turned. With his hair pulled back off his face she could see every line of stress and grief etched into it, weathered sandstone. His voice fractured. “I’d like to, if it will help you.”

She held his shining gaze. She smiled. “Good Boy.”

His face softened. He gave her a long, regretful look. Then turned stiffly and marched from her chambers.

Lenore heard her bedroom door thunk closed. She rolled her eyes up and collapsed onto the couch. She puffed her hair out of her face and pursed her lips.

_ Fuck. So close. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Make sure to follow the #LenectorWeekend2021 tag for all the great content this week!
> 
> Shameless plug, if you like me doing vampire mommy and her human boy, have a peek at my ongoing femdom erotica story ["The House of Flame Lilies" on Literotica](https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5441978&page=submissions)!
> 
> Serious moment. If Lenore and Hector existed in the real world, they would obviously be problematic in regards to the golden rule of Safe (check your technique), Sane (check your frame of mind) and Consensual (check your partner). But, in a fictional play space, they were a really important moment of representation for BDSM and femdom. Kinksters, especially dominant women and submissive men, are seriously erased and misrepresented in media and get a lot of flack in real life. This fic is in lots of ways a really personal exploration of Lenore and Hector's relationship through my own lens as someone in that community. It's not a universal interpretation, but it's been really great for me to get to work on these characters in thinking about D/s. If you're interested in learning more about BDSM and how it works for those of us who aren't morally dubious eternal walkers of the night, I really recommend the podcasts ["Sex Nerd Sandra"](https://open.spotify.com/show/4KHQPmWIQNd5wAvGVO9agv) and Mistress Simone's ["The Femme Domme Mystique"](https://open.spotify.com/show/6L7rLYcfBH4mBejVBjABEK) for lots of in-depth, open conversations with a variety of voices. I also highly recommend ["Ill Repute"](https://open.spotify.com/show/3CFDXwBd2GYNFeSF9ZsdpE) with Siouxsie Q and Sovereign Syre - two awesome ladies in the sex industry talk about how and why women have been shamed throughout history for using their sexuality. 
> 
> Valentine's love to you all!


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